Diversifying the Faculty and Staff

Compared to peer schools, Albright seems to be doing fairly well in the recruitment of a diverse faculty and staff. Albright has 12 percent minorities among the faculty and 8.5 percent among the staff. Elizabethtown College has 2.53 percent minority faculty and 1.64 percent staff; Muhlenberg has 4.7 percent minority faculty and 10.2 percent staff; Dickinson has 9 percent minority faculty (staff percentages not reported); and Ursinus has 9.3 percent minority faculty and 5.4 percent staff.

But there is still work to be done, says Andrea Chapdelaine, Ph.D., acting vice president of academic affairs. “We’re definitely doing better in the past four years. It’s not enough to be a strong presence yet, but we’re very committed.”

On paper, the numbers speak for themselves; the Albright community seems to be pretty diverse. But is it a healthy, diverse community?

In 2002, 377 students, 104 administrators and staff, and 43 faculty members completed a survey on discrimination. Professor Snyder says that her interpretation of the data shows that about 40 percent of the respondents were aware of discriminatory treatment of individuals working at Albright College, and almost 1/3 of the faculty, staff and administration, and almost 1/4 of the students believed that they had been discriminated against personally.

“Albright says it values diversity among us,” says Snyder. “But we have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.”

Sally Stetler, director of student activities, agrees, “I’ve seen diversity on our campus grow, but we’re not celebrating it, we’re managing it.”

Until recently, that is.

The Council on Social Equality

Following two incidents during the fall 2004 semester – the incident described earlier and one in which a student wrote racist remarks on a fellow student’s dorm room door – Interim President David Stinebeck, Ph.D. learned that there was a dormant Diversity Task Force last active in 2002. Members of the task force approached Stinebeck asking to re-start the group. Professor Snyder was one of the original members. “As a consequence of the racial issues that emerged, we believed it was important to activate the task force again.” she says. “It’s not just focused on racial issues though, that’s just what precipitated it.”

Comprised of faculty, administrators, staff and students, The Council on Social Equality (CSE), formerly known as the Diversity Task Force, began its work in late fall 2004. Serving in an advisory capacity to the president, the council’s mission is to “create an environment that welcomes and celebrates all forms of difference in order to enhance the experiences of every member of the campus and to advance Albright’s goal of enriching the community’s commitment to the best of human values.”

CSE’s goals are to: offer and support curricular and co-curricular activities and training that advance social equality; create an environment of acceptance; serve as a campus resource for all diversity related issues; hear and respond to grievances related to social equality; and keep the discourse on diversity at the forefront of the College’s vision.

One of the first orders of business was to draft a clear discrimination policy that incorporates all kinds of discrimination and that applies not only to students, but to faculty, administrators and staff as well. President Stinebeck says that established policies such as the Student Code of Conduct and the sexual harassment policy could have been applied, but the lack of a policy that incorporates other differences such as race, religion and sexual orientation was a problem.

“This new policy will make more of an impact,” says Stinebeck. “It dramatizes something we weren’t dramatizing before. It’s a more aggressive approach.”

And, he emphasizes, it applies to everyone, not just students. “It happens every year…a well-meaning faculty member will say to a black student in class, ‘How do black people feel about that?’ It puts the student in a very difficult position. We have to become more conscious of such things,” he says.

The second priority, says CSE leader Michelle Daniels, Ph.D., vice president and dean of student affairs, was to train the members so they can lead diversity workshops at Albright. “First, we have to do our own exploration individually and collectively,” says Daniels. “We have to build trust within the group.” Using consultants from the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI), a non-profit leadership training organization based in Washington, D.C., 19 members of the Albright community were trained in February. The first diversity workshop was held in April for Peer Orientation Persons (POPs). POPs are students who will lead Freshman Orientation in the fall.

“This is a long-range plan,” says Daniels. “It’s not a silver bullet. There are new people coming into our community every day.” She says that the council is committed to its work, stressing that there won’t be any more eruptions as has been experienced in the past.

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